Wednesday

David has started saying sentences that go along the lines of "well, this may be the last time we do "blank" as a family of three!"

I don't like that sentence or any of it's variations.  I wish I could explain better how I feel about baby #2, because making statements like the one I just made tends to make people think you don't want the child to whom you are referring, and nothing could be further from the truth!  The reality is that I dearly love this baby already, and I desperately want her to be part of our family and also, you know, out of my abdomen, too.  That last bit would be especially great.

It's just that it's another child.  And that means I'll have two children.  And I don't know how to have two children.  I'll figure it out, of course, because I don't have another option and also because I'm fairly smart and pretty flexible for the most part, but until that new reality actually becomes routine, I know I'll be a bit of a wreck.

All of the 'prepping' I'm doing for the baby, I realize that it comes down to preparing for the hurricane.  You know when a hurricane is coming, and you buy extra batteries and bottles of water, and you make some phone calls to people you love who are going to be worried if your phone stops working, and you get all your washing up to date in case the power goes out...you're getting ready for the storm.  I'm getting ready for the storm I know is coming.

I know that I'll come home and Samuel will be jealous.  I know I'll have some pain breastfeeding.  I know my mother and I will get on each other's nerves and David will go back to work too early and I'll cry and bleed a lot.  I know these things, and I also know there's very little I can do about the fact that they're going to happen.  But I can fool myself, just temporarily, and think that if I can wash all the baby's clothes and arrange them perfectly in drawers...then the storm won't come.  If I can get my tupperware organized...then the storm won't come.  If I can finish my pages and pages of 'to do lists', if I can cook enough freezer meals, if I can read enough blog posts on labour...then the storm won't come.

But the storm will come.  The clouds are already on the horizon, I can see them.  I can see them building with every false contraction, every achy back, every single middle of the night pee break.  I can see them when Sam has a tantrum and I wonder "what will I do when he has this tantrum and I'm holding a newborn?" and when I realize that there are some things I cannot do to help myself through that storm.

At some point, we will have to make four the new normal.  We will have to stop using the paper plates and start washing dishes for a family of four.  I will have to stop saying things like "I can justify disposable diapers for the baby because I don't have time to wash cloth for two" and I'll just have to start washing cloth for two.  I'll have to move us away from cold cereal breakfasts and joints of meat that we eat for days on end and actually start cooking again.  Eventually, I'll have to do what Noah did, and gather my courage, and open up those ark doors to see what my world looks like now.  Now that the old is gone, and the new is just beginning.